Member-only story
All history is economic. People try, with varying degrees of success, to improve their perceived lot in life. For some, that means achieving material gain; for others it means coming to terms with not achieving it. Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks.
There are two kinds of period in history: plus-sum and zero-sum. In zero-sum times, people must compete to win. In plus-sum times, people must cooperate to win. Technology accounts for the state of play. When technology advances, plus-sum opportunities arise. When technology stagnates, keeping what one has becomes more difficult, and getting more means that someone else must get less.
By “technology,” I mean know-how in every sense of the word. Knowing how to convert distance into force via a simple machine is technology, and knowing how to decide public issues by delegation (or arrogation) of authority is technology. The bicameral legislature is a technology, and understanding the Second Law of Thermodynamics is technology.
Most important, game theory, and centrally, the Prisoners’ Dilemma, which connects the Second Law to politics, is technology. Hobbes’s Leviathan, religious ethics, and community mores all exist to “coordinate” the plus-sum opportunity called “civilization.” Energy must be applied to prevent us from defecting, to get…